Old Christmas, new Christmas
Christmas (1819) / Washington Irving
Christmas from The pearl, or, Affection's gift (1829)
Excerpt from Retrospect of Western travel (1938) / Harriet Martineau
Sentiment, slavery, and war at Christmas
Christmas, or, The good fairy (1850) / Harriet Beecher Stowe
Merry Christmas!
Happy Christmas! (1853) / Fanny Fern
Christmas in Slavery
Excerpt from Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass (1845) / Frederick Douglass
Excerpt from Twelve years a slave (1853) / Solomon Northup
Christmas festivities (1863) / Harriet Jacobs
A hospital Christmas (1864) / Louisa May Alcott
Excerpt from Five Little Peppers and How They Grew (1881) / Margaret Sidney
Christmas realities
The promise of the dawn: a Christmas story (1863) / Rebecca Harding Davis
How Santa Claus came to Simpson's Bar (1873) / Bret Harte
An English New Year (January 1879) / Henry James
Christmas every day (1892) / William Dean Howells
Christmas Jenny (1891) / Mary Wilkins Freeman
Little Miss Sophie (1899) / Alice Dunbar-Nelson
Wrestling with the reason for the season
Excerpt from Ben Hur: a tale of the Christ (1880) / Lew Wallace
Miracle joyeux (1898) / Frank Norris
A Christmas sermon (1891) and What I want for Christmas (1897) / Robert G. Ingersoll
Happy Christmas to all?
Excerpt from The ghost dance war (1890) / Charles Alexander Eastman
Rabbi Eliezer's Christmas (1899) / Abraham Cahan
General Washington: a Christmas story (1900) / Pauline Hopkins
Merry Christmas in the tenements (1897) / Jacob A. Riis.